I must respond to last week's letter to the editor from Nicholas Harmon entitled, "Where have all the businesses gone?' My response comes from the need to express my view and a level of frustration that pervades.

The Valley has an abundance of existing businesses and I wonder how anyone could think otherwise. What concerns me most is why anyone would think otherwise. The Valley offers such an array of business'e that I seldom need to go anywhere for anything that I might desire.

The area boasts a minimum of 25 places where one can sit down and eat anything from pizza to pecan pie and with a mass population of less than 5,000 people in all its villages combined that equals a restaurant for every 100 persons and their individual taste buds to explore. Quite extravagant and sufficient, it more than adequately meets its population.

Yes, our town is abundant with business. We have it all! We have airports and we have auto mechanics. We have contractors and clothing stores. We have art galleries and picture theatres. We have hardware stores, mortgage brokers and real estate agents. We have mountain resorts at which one can ski and we have tennis clubs at which one can rally. There are stores that celebrate Christmas all the year through and stores that offer rentals for anything from 'A" to "Z'. We have doctors, holistic healers and therapist's galore. We even have a thrift store! I could continue and mention every business that is 'up and running' in our little world, but I do believe I've made my point clear.

The one thing we do not have in the Valley is the one thing no one can give us but ourselves and that is the desire and the ability to see.